Sun Yulong, Li Dijie, Zhang Ru, Peng Shang, Zhang Ge, Yang Tuanmin, Qian Airong
Key Laboratory for Space Biosciences & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, PR China.
Institute for Advancing Translational Medicine in Bone & Joint Diseases, School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China.
Biochimie. 2017 Jan;132:131-151. doi: 10.1016/j.biochi.2016.11.006. Epub 2016 Nov 25.
Natural antisense transcripts, originally considered as transcriptional noises arising from so-called "junk DNA″, are recently recognized as important modulators for gene regulation. They are prevalent in nearly all realms of life and have been found to modulate gene expression positively or negatively. By affecting almost all stages of gene expression range from pre-transcriptional, transcriptional and post-transcriptional to translation, NATs are fundamentally involved in various biological processes. However, compared to increasing huge data from transcriptional analysis especially high-throughput sequencing technologies (such as RNA-seq), limited functional NATs (around 70) are so far reported, which hinder our advanced comprehensive understanding for this field. Hence, efficient strategies for identifying NATs are urgently desired. In this review, we discussed the current strategies for identifying NATs, with a focus on the advantages, disadvantages, and applications of methods isolating functional NATs. Moreover, publicly available databases for NATs were also discussed.
天然反义转录本最初被认为是源自所谓“垃圾DNA”的转录噪音，最近被公认为是基因调控的重要调节因子。它们几乎在生命的所有领域都普遍存在，并已被发现对基因表达有正向或负向调节作用。通过影响基因表达从转录前、转录、转录后到翻译的几乎所有阶段，天然反义转录本从根本上参与了各种生物学过程。然而，与转录分析尤其是高通量测序技术（如RNA测序）产生的海量数据不断增加相比，目前报道的功能性天然反义转录本数量有限（约70个），这阻碍了我们对该领域的深入全面理解。因此，迫切需要有效的天然反义转录本鉴定策略。在本综述中，我们讨论了当前鉴定天然反义转录本的策略，重点介绍了分离功能性天然反义转录本方法的优缺点及应用。此外，还讨论了天然反义转录本的公开可用数据库。
